Thought I would offer some ideas that might help first time trackday riders. I am NOT YET an experienced track day rider, and I am NOT YET very fast, but there are a few things that if I had known about or done differently would have made my first track day experience better.

This is based on having done 6 or 7 track days at Miller Motorsports Park, roughly half of them on the ZX14 (now riding an older Yamaha 600 race bike). Track days at Miller may be a little different than at other tracks. There seems to be a large group of fairly experienced track riders, and very few street bikes. I've not yet seen another ZX14 or a Busa there -- nothing above literbikes except me. So the level of experience of the riders there seems fairly high -- even in the "B" and "C" groups.

First time I took the 14 there, it didn't start out well. Soon as I got out on the track, I felt that I had to try to go fast, and I didn't know the track at all. Almost got into trouble several times, and I wasn't going very fast at all, really.

I felt that I was a fairly fast street rider, or could be when I wanted to be. I found out that I was NOTHING on the track. It is a different world altogether.

So here are some thoughts/suggestions:

1. Don't go out there thinking you are the fastest guy on the track. You're not.
2. Take it REAL easy at first. TRY TO LEARN WHERE THE RACE LINE IS. If you can, try to follow someone who knows the track. Take advantage of any instruction that is offered.
3. Adjust your tire pressures. There is often a tire vendor at the track (Scott Larsen is the Michelin guy at Miller) who will be happy to suggest the right pressures for your tires, based on the bike, the tire, and the track. The right pressure is often 10 pounds or more LOWER than your street pressure.
4. Give your tires a couple of laps to warm up before you get on it.
5. Use your RPMs. You should be approaching your red line often around the track.
6. Don't make any extra effort to get your knee down. Let that come naturally in time.
7. You're going to have a lot to think about. If you want to have one less thing to think about, forget about using your rear brake. You can do quite well without it.
8. Try not to slide forward in the seat while braking for a corner. Stomp Grips on the side of your gas tank help a lot.
9. If you feel yourself losing some focus or concentration towards the end of a session or towards the end of the day, call it good and get off the track.
10. Study the corners and try to find the best line through each of them. Realize that you will sometimes get through a corner faster if you come in a little slower in order to set up for a faster exit.
11. Don't turn into a corner too early (many people do this).
12. BE SMOOTH. Everywhere, but especially powering out of turns. A high side is something you will want to avoid.
13. RELAX -- especially your arms. Stay loose and let the bike do what it needs to do.
14. Put your footpegs as high and as far back as your rear sets will allow. Keep the balls of your feet on the footpegs.
15. If you feel comfortable doing so, shift your weight towards the inside of the corner. If you don't want to move your butt to the side of the seat, at least shift your upper body and head toward the inside of the corner.
16. Look WAY ahead, around the corner. You can't do much about where you're going to be 10 feet ahead of you -- you've already made that decision.
17. When somebody passes you, don't try to keep up if it is beyond your comfort level.
18. If you feel you're not going to make a corner, or you're going to run off the track, lean it over further than you think you can. You'll probably be fine.
19. Try not to be alarmed when someone passes you. Try not to change your line when that happens. The guy passing you is supposed to do it safely, and relies on your not making any abrupt changes to your line.

I know there are racers and much more experienced (fast) trackday riders here in the forum. I'm not the best one to be putting together a list like this -- I'm old and slow and stupid. But nobody else has offered this, so I'll start it off.

Please feel free to pick it apart, show me where I'm wrong, or point out items that should be added. Maybe it can become a useful resource.

Realize that the ZX14 is probably not the best track bike. It has lots of power, but it is big and heavy and kind of long. It's much happier in big sweeping turns than in tight ones. You'll be riding with smaller bikes that are born to turn. Don't be discouraged if you can't keep up with them (in the turns, anyway)... <grin>

UPDATE AFTER ATTENDING YAMAHA CHAMPIONS RIDING SCHOOL. The points above are still good, but here are a few more:

1. The quickest way through a corner is to find the slowest point in the corner, SMOOTHLY brake until you get there, and then SMOOTHLY accelerate as you pass that point and start standing the bike up.
2. Braking is EVERYTHING. When you start braking, do so VERY gradually. Only when the front forks have been compressed should you get hard on the brakes, and then you can get VERY hard on them. Brake until you are happy with your speed in the corner -- this is usually well into the turn. But as you increase lean angle, smoothly decrease pressure on the brakes. Ideally, you will brake until you get to that slowest point in the corner. It's just as important to let OFF the brakes as smoothly as you got ON them. Practice stopping in a straight line. As you come to a stop, let off the brakes SO GRADUALLY that when your forks are fully extended, they don't "bounce" back down AT ALL. This is what you want to do in a corner.
3. Going into a corner, put your butt crack on the edge of the seat towards the inside of your turn. Actually, put it there before you get to the corner (one less thing to worry about). The only time your butt should be in the center of the seat should be going down a long straightaway.
4. As you go into a corner, the ball of your inside foot should be on the END of the footpeg. This helps you get your knee out comfortably.
5. Get your head down and toward the inside of the corner. You should be looking straight ahead right about at the point where your mirror would be if you had one on the bike. The more weight that you can get to the inside of the corner, the faster you can go at a given lean angle. Faster and safer.
6. As you turn into a corner, push DOWN on the INSIDE footpeg. As you accelerate out of a corner, push DOWN on the OUTSIDE footpeg.
7. Keep scanning with your eyes. Be sure you are looking FAR ahead of where you are. It doesn't do any good to look right in front of you -- it's too late to make any corrections there.

Hope this is helpful.

Enjoy! -bg

* Last updated by: bgordon on 2/17/2012 @ 11:22 AM *

Thanks BG. Newbie advice is extremely valuable to other newbies. The best teachers are always experienced but I have always learned more from fellow students.

This is a great idea for a thread, BG. I don't think I have ever seen it before.
Some of this stuff can be applied to the street as well. As far as adding to what you have there I can't be any help, ...yet.
I can imagine just keeping loose and letting the bike flow would be a very challenging thing to do unless you can find a zone and tune out all your negative thoughts.

Great idea Bg thanks? I'm going to try track this summer and have only 1 year of experience riding, I'm actually doing this not just for the fun but thinking it's make me a better rider. I'm gonna be living in Austin TX do you guys recommend any school in that area? I'm obviously not going to have money or time to get on a track 5 times a week, what can I practice (on a close street of course ) in order for me to take full advantage on track day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L61Waqjgk0c&feature=player_profilepage

Firstimers need to bring your basic physics to the track. Listen to tire growth i.e., heat expansion and what a few pounds can do to both front and rear end swapping.

* Last updated by: Hub on 7/4/2011 @ 2:18 PM *

Good one Hub....Very cool.

1.Don't go out there thinking you are the fastest guy on the track. You're not.

BG I like this one. I see guys all the time come out to a track day and wont sign up for the novice group because "they are fast street riders". All that shit goes out the window real fast.

All that shit goes out the window real fast.

It sure does!

You think the range of speeds for different riders is this:

slow <---------> fast

and you find out REAL QUICK that it's really this:

slow <-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> fast

and that you're at the bottom end of slow. -bg

* Last updated by: bgordon on 7/14/2011 @ 4:29 PM *

BG thanks! I'm heading to the track for the first time next month and can't wait! I've been doing track days in my cars for years but never any on my two wheels baby! I'm heading to Tonys track days in NH Aug 16th n 17th....Anyone going?

did my first track day at barber july 23...wow is it fun...My buddy who has been before(ducati 1098) and a newbie friend (r6) went and had a blast.. learned alot, I had a Dunlap gpa on the rear soft/med/soft a q2 on the front..the rear is tore up lol..My advice go to have fun and you will. we going bck in sept..hellz yeah

You have these dots on the bars you line up with the split of the half cap or the perch hanger or whatever you want to call the clamping side. That is your joe-average production setting alone with your front fork caps or split-clamping-design.

What I'm saying is that you have a few design splits to think about and what I am about to say about them, empirically. Don't ask me how, it was Lag Goon Ha Sicka like was the last laugh was on me, turtle. Honda has a clamping cap that has a rise on one side. You bark this one side down first. Even the cap has a dot or some sort of arrow symbol about describing which direction the clamp needs to be positioned; usually forward or up.

You now sort of find the next category of clamping style is the same flat across the cap, rather, the step is gone! See, the stepped clamp is easy to adjust and you have no choice in that style of clamp design. Torque the top to spec or know your gorilla setting. The other trick is to loosen the lower bolt enough to smack the lever so it moves easy on a crash. You clamp it home, that lever will snap off or bend.

Track set wise, you have that lever so it just moves somewhat harder than what the human hand can do but not do at, say a 70 mph hit at it. You pick it up, smack it back to position and off you go and that means a 50/50% chance it may be salvageable, if the real bark down was [not so much] on the lower bolt. Yeah, but what about the stepped top bolt going nowhere but the lower won't back out with that short a lap you come in and check via rounds. Well, how about blue locker on the top bolt only IF it is the even-cap design. You measure the cap back in place before you loose the bottom bolt; without the locker. Dab some goop glue on the lower if you feel like it might fall out in a few laps.

OK, how do we setup the even-cap so the (((VIBE))) is out of the bar buzz? That's what I wanted to say. I set this bike up like every bike I've ever sat on was first the lever angle before the sag. If that fairing gets in the way, oh well! Nothing hits where we are so close a compromise can't happen, meaning. Getting back to Laguna, it was there that a bar vibration was numbing my arm or arms, I forget? But I do remember setting up a strange bike with my feeler gauges. And for the clamps being it was a [Suzuki] it used an even-cap clamp style. Suz needed more setup time, not a step-cap kind of the upper [cap] is closed for a non-adjustment.

Here again was the meguybeer in action at the race track. I was on a sponsored bike as I remember now who that person was. Practice was having no brake lever before the cork. I remember pumping the front for a few laps, wondering what was going on with that front end? Wheelie up turn 4 and if those caps were any looser at the axle ends, no wheel when I came down.

Anyway, Suzuki used the even-cap design back then. If it is still used by other makers being those even-caps, I find that if you use a feeler gauge to each side, you can eliminate a lot of vibe if not most of it. With the Aprilia, I can pull back the bars to my liking first. Then I cock my wrist out or say at my most comfortable hand placement [once I know I'm going to sit like this AT the most] comfortable seating position. That sit is also a natural stand on the pegs and you should be in your birds nest sitting on your eggs as it were... All comfortable.

Now you rest your hands over the levers. Are they too low/too high? My aim down my arm is razor sharp I hit the lever out it should be a constant relaxed lever hand... Yeah, your hand has an ass too; so make sure it sits well like your first one. I wouldn't let you out on the track without this initial setup if that is the first move out of the crate is the very first setup street/race/tour = PERIOD!

Pick your poison (vid). Some barker downers have no clue about the finer points of vibe, where ass, the precision planters do... And don't forget only your hair dresser knows for sure; WOT or how racing speed can point the way for streetricks and comfortouring too.